Environmental sciences articles within Nature Geoscience

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  • News & Views |

    Atmospheric levels of chloroform, an ozone-depleting substance not part of the Montreal Protocol, have risen. The increase may be attributable to industrial emissions in Eastern China.

    • Susann Tegtmeier

  • Review Article |

    Stressors such as large-scale damming, hydrological change, pollution, the introduction of non-native species and sediment mining are challenging the integrity and future of large rivers, according to a synthesis of the literature on the 32 biggest rivers.

    • Jim Best

  • Review Article |

    The abundance of microorganisms in the continental subsurface may have been overestimated, according to a review compilation of data from subsurface localities around the globe.

    • C. Magnabosco
    • , L.-H. Lin
    •  & T. C. Onstott

  • News & Views |

    Much of the carbon in rivers originates from wildfires and is ultimately buried in the oceanic carbon sink, suggest measurements from 18 rivers globally. Rivers transport almost a gigaton of carbon to the oceans every year.

    • Lars J. Tranvik

  • Article |

    Tall trees are less sensitive to variation in precipitation than short trees, according to analyses of photosynthetic sensitivity to drought in tall and short Amazon forests. The results demonstrate higher resilience of tall trees to drought.

    • Francesco Giardina
    • , Alexandra G. Konings
    •  & Pierre Gentine

  • Editorial |

    Human manipulation of hydrocarbons — as fuel and raw materials for modern society — has changed our world and the indelible imprint we will leave in the rock record. Plastics alone have permeated our lives and every corner of our planet.

  • Review Article |

    Indicators of environmental and social footprints of international trade must inform assessments of progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals, suggests a synthesis of studies on the geospatial separation of consumption and production.

    • Thomas Wiedmann
    •  & Manfred Lenzen

  • News & Views |

    West African farmers adjust tree cover to realize the co-benefits of agroforestry, according to analyses of remote sensing data.

    • Niall P. Hanan

  • Article |

    Biocrust coverage of soils could decrease by 25–40% within 65 years, due to climate and land-use changes. Biocrusts, such as lichens and algae, cover 12% of Earth’s land surface but environmental modelling suggests that they are vulnerable to change.

    • Emilio Rodriguez-Caballero
    • , Jayne Belnap
    •  & Bettina Weber

  • Article |

    Depending on their connectivity to the river network, wetlands can be much more efficient at removing nitrate in a watershed than common nitrogen mitigation strategies according to an analysis of the Minnesota River basin.

    • Amy T. Hansen
    • , Christine L. Dolph
    •  & Jacques C. Finlay

  • News & Views |

    The first of two stepwise increases in atmospheric oxygen occurred at the end of the Archaean eon. Analyses of sulfur and iron isotopes in pyrite reveal a near-shore environment that hosted locally oxygenated conditions in the Mesoarchaean era.

    • Maya L. Gomes

  • News & Views |

    The composition of the oceans is altered by hydrothermal circulation. These chemical factories sustain microbial life, which in turn alters the chemistry of the fluids that enter the ocean. A decade of research details this complex interchange.

    • Susan Q. Lang

  • Editorial |

    Great Earth science has been published over the ten years since the launch of Nature Geoscience. The field has also become more interdisciplinary and accountable, as well as more central to society and sustainability.

  • News & Views |

    Progress in the post-combustion treatment of diesel vehicle exhaust has led to shifting proportions of the constituents of nitrogen oxides. Observations from 61 European cities suggest that the outlook on attaining NO2 standards is more optimistic than expected.

    • Drew R. Gentner
    •  & Fulizi Xiong

  • Article |

    The current distribution of crops around the world neither attains maximum production nor minimum water use, according to a crop water model and yield data. An optimized crop distribution could feed an additional 825 million people and substantially reduce water use.

    • Kyle Frankel Davis
    • , Maria Cristina Rulli
    •  & Paolo D’Odorico

  • Editorial |

    The world's inland waters are under siege. A system-level view of watersheds is needed to inform both our scientific understanding and management decisions for these precious resources.

  • Perspective |

    Many of the world's saline lakes have been shrinking due to consumptive water use. The Great Salt Lake, USA, provides an example for how the health of and ecosystem services provided by saline lakes can be sustained.

    • Wayne A. Wurtsbaugh
    • , Craig Miller
    •  & Johnnie Moore

  • News & Views |

    Debate rages over which water bodies in the US are protected under federal law by the Clean Water Act. Science shows that isolated wetlands and headwater systems provide essential downstream services, but convincing politicians is another matter.

    • Mark A. Ryan

  • Perspective |

    Enhanced protection is needed for freshwater bodies in the United States — in particular impermanent streams and wetlands outside floodplains — according to an assessment of their value and vulnerability.

    • Irena F. Creed
    • , Charles R. Lane
    •  & Lora Smith

  • Review Article |

    River deltas are shaped by interactions between fluvial and tidal processes. Tides act to stabilize delta morphology, but sediment depletion due to human activities disrupts the balance and leads to erosion and scour.

    • A. J. F. Hoitink
    • , Z. B. Wang
    •  & K. Kästner

  • News & Views |

    Warm conditions in the Arctic Ocean have been linked to cold mid-latitude winters. Observations and simulations suggest that warm Arctic anomalies lead to a dip in CO2 uptake capacity in North American ecosystems and to low crop productivity.

    • Ana Bastos

  • Editorial |

    The emerging field of geohealth links human well-being and ecosystem health. A deeper understanding of these linkages can help society mitigate the health costs of economic growth before they become crises.

  • Article |

    Dissolved inorganic carbon is buried in dryland basins that do not drain to the sea. Based on measurements of sediment chemistry in twelve of these sites, closed basins are estimated to store 0.15 Pg of dissolved inorganic carbon annually.

    • Yu Li
    • , Chengqi Zhang
    •  & Wangting Ye

  • News & Views |

    Phosphorus loading can cause eutrophication of lakes. Analyses of lake chemistry in China reveal that policies have led to lower phosphorus levels overall, but increasing trends in some lakes suggest that expanded policies may be needed.

    • Jessica Corman

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